Philips Senseo HD7810/95 5-Cup Coffee Maker Review

Although my husband and I are total coffee snobs, neither of us can make a good pot of coffee to save our lives.  He doesn't measure and it comes out like mud and I just can't seem to make a pot of coffee that tastes good.  I follow the directions, I use fresh coffee, but still it just tastes awful.  We've tried different coffees and different coffee makers but our coffee just does not turn out as good as McDonald's or Starbucks or even the gas station on the corner.

The other issue is that if we make a whole pot, most of it goes to waste.  I only want one cup per day so to make a whole pot is a waste.  So I decided to try the Senseo coffeemaker that uses the pre-measured coffee pods to make a single cup of coffee.

The Senseo is easy to use.  Just place one or two pods into the top, fill the reservoir with water, place a mug under the spout, and push the button.  In less than a minute the Senseo pushes the water from the tank, thru the pod, and into the mug as a fresh, hot cup of coffee.  Clean up is easy as there are no messy grounds to dispose of; you just remove the pod, rinse and dry the pod holder, and that's it.  It's really a pretty cool thing.

Senseo considers a cup of coffee to be only 4 ounces.  So to make a full mug of coffee would require 8 ounces of water and possibly 2 pods if you want strong coffee.  I like my coffee kind of mild so I was able to use only one pod per 8 ounces of water.

The problem I had with the Senseo is the taste of the coffee.  It was OK.  Not great, not good, just acceptable.  The bags of pods are pricey but not so pricey that I was unwilling to pay that price.  Each 8 ounce cup of coffee averaged about 50 to 60 cents.  If the coffee was good I'd be OK with the convenience of making one fresh cup at a time but the taste was only acceptable.  Even though the Senseo is convenient and not as wasteful as making a whole pot, the coffee just didn't taste as good as I had hoped so I sent it back to Amazon for a refund.  I really wanted to like it but the thing was huge on my countertop and the coffee was just not good enough. 

Even though it's not as convenient, the coffee at the gas station is about 80 cents for a 24 ounce cup and it tastes great.  Much better than the Senseo.  The concept is good, but the coffee is not.